un poquititito loco
by allieisrandom
Summary: Coco drabbles and oneshots that I've posted on tumblr. Mostly flashbacks to the early 1900's. Imector is the OTP and Ernesto de la Cruz makes a wonderful antagonist but that's it. All songs referenced are sung in the movie Coco and owned by Disney as are the characters and the world.
1. Poison and Wine

**A/N: Trigger Warning for death, murder, poison, and grief.**

_April 1922_

It's been four months since Hector left Santa Cecilia. A grey, furless stray dog in a town a dozen miles away is making an important discovery. By barking, he leads the townspeople to a spot on the outskirts where he then proceeds to dig up a shallow grave, revealing what was once a human man.

His body has decomposed behind recognition, and whatever identification he had on him has been removed. But he is wearing a vest and a pair of pants. And in the pocket of that vest is a headshot. Carollina, the town harlot, recognizes the man in that headshot as "that musician who passed through a few months ago along with his idiot friend who slept with me and then vanished without a trace."

Everyone gossips with each other and wonders how Hector was killed, and more importantly, if the killer is still among them. Was it one of the other musicians playing at that same concert? Was it the inkeeper who complained for weeks that they'd skipped out on their bill? Or worst of all, was it someone with no motive at all-someone with bloodlust?

As the spectulation gets intense and rumors spread, Carollina takes the photograph home and keeps it safe in a drawer. She knows nothing about this man, but her ill will is toward his friend, not him. Maybe he has a family. Maybe he doesn't. But even if he does, how will they know he has dead? In any case, he definitely doesn't deserve to be forgotten forever. She resolves to place his photo on her ofrenda on dia de los muertos.

_May 1922_

A friendly travelling shoe salesman comes to the town. He chats with the townspeople and measures growing childrens' feet and tells stories of places he's gone. He admits that his most beautiful, most expensive shoes were actually made by an incredibly skilled _zapatera _from Santa Cecilia. He tells of her musician husband who went out on tour with his friend and never came back, and how hard she's had to work to provide for herself and her little girl. Carollina runs home to get the photograph and shows it to the shoe salesman, who asks her what she's doing with a picture of Imelda's husband. They put two and two together, and they arrange for Hector's remains to be brought back to Santa Ceclilia, along with the photograph.

_June 1922_

It's been a tedious, ordinary day of making and mending shoes when Coco comes running to tell her Mama that there's a bunch of people gathered outside the shop to stare at a funny man with a wagon. Imelda comes to the door smelling like leather and sweat to find her husband's coffin waiting for her. She screams. She cries. She throws things and beats things with her shoes. She spends the rest of the day on her floor sobbing while her brothers lock the door and bring her water and answer all of Coco's questions.

After the shock has worn off, it's time to arrange and host a funeral, and to find a frame in which to place Hector's photo on the ofrenda. These are all things that Imelda had hoped Coco would be doing some eighty years in the future, long after she was dead. Not things that she would be doing with a little girl on her heels trying to understand why someone would want to hurt her Papa.

_July 1922_

Once the commotion in Santa Cecilia starts to die down, just a little, Imelda realizes that nothing about her circumstances has truly changed. There's the added comfort of knowing why her husband disappeared, and the added anguish of knowing she will never see him again, but she's still a single woman in Santa Cecilia. So, though she now does it with a heavier heart than ever, she goes back to making and mending shoes. She doesn't sing or otherwise bring music into her home, but she doesn't actively shield her family from it, either. After all, music didn't tear apart her family. Some human did.

_August 1922_

Imelda is stopped cold in her tracks, in the dead center of the plaza, by the sound of a familiar tune being played on a mariachi's guitar. Memories come rushing back, of his arms around her, hands holding hers, as he sings the words in her ear. Of his bright, wonderful smile, on a stage, singing it to a crowd only after taking care to point her out in the audience. "This song is for the most incredible woman I have ever known. I love you to the moon and back, _Loquita_!"

_Tú me traes un poco loco, un poquititito loco  
Estoy adivinando qué quieres y pa' cuándo  
Y así estoy celebrando  
Que me he vuelto un poco loco_

Imelda screams as she pulls off her slipper and aims it at the head of the mariachi, who promptly drops his guitar and shrieks, apologizing.

"_Lo siento, Señora Rivera! Lo se, no muzica!"_

"I don't care if you play music, just not…where did you even hear that song?"

The mariachi looks at her incredulously. "Why, everyone in _Mexico _knows that song, _Señora_! It was written by the great Ernesto de la Cruz!"

Imelda's shoe drops from her hand and into the dirt. The noise from the plaza fades into the background as the sound of ringing fills her ears.

Her husband's death is not a mystery. It never has been. She knows _exactly _who killed him. And why.

_September 1922_

"Coco's bedtime is eight o'clock. She eats two eggs with her breakfast. Señor Martinez is coming over to pick up his shoes sometime tomorrow morning, other than that, you should have no repairs. If anyone comes looking to buy a pair of shoes, I've written the prices on the tags. No negotiations."

"Imelda, I'm not an idiot, I'm not going to give your shoes away," said Oscar. Filipe nodded in agreement.

"Shut up," Imelda muttered as she strapped on her newest pair of wooden heels.

"How long do you expect to be gone?" asked Filipe.

"Three days." One day there, one day to do the deed, and one day back.

"Are you sure you don't want one of us to go with you?" asked Oscar.

"I'm sure." Imelda picked up her carpetbag. "This is between me, and the man who ruined my life." She squared her shoulders and marched out without giving the twins a chance to respond.

The concert that was to take place the following night had been highly publicized in all the major papers that she had started ordering for the express purpose of stalking Ernesto. She wore a plain, colorless dress along with an obscene amount of makeup and did her hair in a long braid down her back, completely different than how she usually wore it. She didn't want to be recognizable from afar, or by anyone from her own town who she might encounter.

The concert happens. It's a roaring success, complete with an after party with lots of music and laughter and liquor. When Ernesto takes his fourth drink, he takes it from a bar maid who seems oddly familiar. He doesn't remember if he's seen her somewhere. He doesn't remember how to express this. But a few minutes later, his stomach is starting to cramp a little. His friends tell him he needs to sleep off the liquor again and carry him up to his hotel room to lie down for the night. By the time a maid barges in to do her morning cleaning and finds the great Ernesto de la Cruz unresponsive in his bed, Imelda is on a train back to Santa Cecilia.

Some men just can't hold their arsenic.

_October 1922_

On dia de los muertos, Imelda leaves a small plate of offerings for her mother on the ofrenda along with every single one of Hector's favorite foods. Oscar and Filipe take turns dancing with Coco and playing Hector's songs on their trumpets, along with other songs that they feel properly honor the man they'd come to think of as a big brother. For the first time in eleven months, Imelda sings. Her vocal cords are a touch rusty, but no one cares, least of all Hector, who unbeknownst to the living Riveras sits beside her the entire night. He hopes she knows he came. He hopes she knows that he will be back every year, and that if he could he would never leave this house, little as it has to offer him now. He hopes she knows how proud and in awe he is of every single thing that she's accomplished in the past year and everything that she's ever been.

He hopes she knows that he hates himself for having left on that stupid tour, even after she takes care to whisper the words "Ernesto murdered Hector and tried to steal his songs" to no one in particular several times until he finally believes it.

Later that night, Coco sneaks out of bed and kneels down at the ofrenda. She looks up at the picture of her Papa, who she now knows lives in the land of the dead and is visiting her tonight but she won't be able to see him with her eyes again for a long time. She closes her eyes and tries to see him with her heart. His smile, his laugh, his arms around her whole body, his fingers on the chords of the guitar. His voice.

And she sings.

"_Remember me  
Though you have to say goodbye  
Remember me  
Don't let it make you cry  
For even if you're far away I hold you in my heart  
I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart_

_Remember me  
Though you'll have to travel far  
Remember me  
Each time you hear a sad guitar  
Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be  
Until you're in my arms again  
Remember me"_

And he hopes she knows that he's singing along.


	2. Ernesto's Return

A part of Ernesto de la Cruz had always longed to return to Santa Cecilia. Well, perhaps not always. But certainly once he'd achieved stardom. He'd had news articles mailed to him, so he knew he was on the front page of the town's paper any time he did anything noteworthy…which apparently was any time he did anything at all. He'd seen photos of the statues they'd built of him, art contests his face had won, festivals and singing competitions held in his name! He had always dreamed of becoming his hometown's sole claim to fame. And he had done it. And he dreamt often of the day he would walk the cobbled streets of his mundane childhood and be nearly trampled by admirers-no, _worshipers._

So why did it take Ernesto nearly 13 years to return to Santa Cecilia after leaving to go play for the world?

Well…there was a certain matter that had to be handled delicately. And he finally felt that it was time.

The day of his homecoming was everything he had ever dreamed it would be, from the belated ribbon cutting at de la Cruz Plaza, to the photos of him that hung in every establishment he was willing to enter, to the scream and cries whenever he was spotted, to the hoards of townsfolk who gathered around the stage to hear him sing. And sing he did. Then he signed autographs, posed for photos, autographed photos, kissed babies, hugged children, flirted with _senioritas_ half his age, shook hands, and spouted out, "The best advice I could ever give? Seize your moment."

At exactly half past two, Ernesto announced that his visit to Santa Cecilia had come to an end and implored its residents to remember him. This was met with a roar of applause, peppered with cries of "We will!" In his Rolls Royce, he rode off into the sunrise.

And then back at his hotel room, he waited.

Minutes ticked by. For a brief moment, he wondered if perhaps he'd been wrong. He wasn't often wrong about people. But if there'd ever been a hard nut to crack, it was her.

At exactly a quarter past three, two sharp taps sounded on his door. He opened it.

And there she was. All 5-and-a-half feet of her, wrapped in plain grey wool. Every bit as hard, cold, and infuriated as he'd expected.

"He's not here," Ernesto said.

Something flashed across her eyes. Disappointment? Relief? Anger? Some winning combination of the three?

"Then where is he?" She spoke, her voice crackling like fire.

"It's hard to say, exactly. It's been a few years since we parted ways. You'll forgive me if I'm unsure exactly which state he's in with his new partners in song."

Her face seemed to soften, but only by a fraction of a fraction.

"How long has it been since you heard from him?"

"At this point…" Ernesto's brow furrowed. "A year and a half? And that was only to ask me for the two thousand dollars I owed him. I assume he's received it since then."

"_Dollars?"_

"_Ay, si_. The bastard landed himself a permanent work visa in _los Estados Unidos. _That what happens when you're so good at what you do that Vincent López takes notice. I, of course, got left behind. They only wanted the songwriter. You needn't worry about him. He's been wildly successful. Rumor has it that he ghostwrote The Way You Look Tonight. Have you heard it?"

She had not heard it, of course. She didn't speak _Ingles_, and unbeknownst to him, had banished all music from her life anyhow.

But that didn't salve the sting of Ernesto's words.

He could tell from the hurt in her eyes that she was buying it. But he also knew he needed more. She wasn't like Hector. She wouldn't take hogwash at face value from people she loved and trusted, let alone anyone else.

"Here, I have something for you," Ernesto grumbled. Then he reached into his suitcase and retrieved a record in a sleeve. The cover was a photograph of Hector and Ernesto together. The original photo was taken as part of a publicity shoot only three days before Hector's demise. This record cover had been custom made five years later, in anticipation of this exact moment. It was faded and weathered, corners crumpled.

But the title of the album, "_Recuerdame_," was clear as day. As were the words, "1928" "Hector Rivera" "Ernesto de la Cruz" and the esteemed record label's logo.

Now she knew. Her husband was alive and well. He was sharing his music with the world. And he was happy.

Without her.

"Go ahead and take it," Ernesto encouraged, sliding the envelope into her calloused palms. "It's one of the first copies printed. Maybe Coco would like to hear her Papa's voice one last time?"

Ernesto held back a smile as she followed his plan by taking the record out of the sleeve and striking him over the head with it, cracking it clear down the center. Then she threw the sleeve down at his feet and ran away.

His problems were finally behind him. Forever.


	3. Restore What is Broken

It almost felt like a dream, the two huge brown eyes looking up at Hector from the blue bundle in his arms as rose and lilac skirts twirled about the floor around him. He worried so much that he would lose his family so many times in his life. And yet in the past five years, it had only grown. His wife was resting in their marriage bed. His daughters were dancing and bouncing, healthy and happy as ever, chirping about their new baby brother. And Hector's newborn son was safe in his arms, chest rising and falling, taking in the world around him with a peaceful gaze.

"Papa, is my baby brother asleep?" asked Coco, briefly pausing her dancing. Her little sister followed suit.

"Not right now, _mija_," Hector replied softly.

"Can we turn our music on? Please?"

Hector smiled. "Yes, but keep it soft, Socorro. Mama is still resting."

Coco's bare feet padded across the cold floor. Adelita skipped along behind as Coco meticulously turned the radio on and set it to the softest possible volume.

Then the older girl's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

"Papa! It's you! On the radio!"

Hector held back a chuckle.

"How can it be me, _mija_? I'm right here."

Coco inched the volume up just a tiny bit so that Hector could hear from across the room.

_"…noche estar aquí  
Es mi pasión, qué alegría  
Pues la música es mi lengua  
Y el mundo es mi familia…"_

Now it was Hector's turn to be surprised.

"Papa!" cried Adi, clapping her hands. "Papa singing music for the whole world!"

"That's…actually not me, _niñas_. That's someone else singing my song."

Coco frowned as she shut off the radio.

"You told me _you_ wrote that song."

Hector motioned for the girls to come over. They did.

"Up until a few years ago-when you were about Adi's age, Coco-I had a very good friend. Almost like a brother. We played music together on our guitars, and we sang."

"Tio Nesto?"

"You remember him?"

"Yeah. I thought he was died!"

Hector wondered where Coco had gotten that idea, but he hadn't been too sure of Ernesto's whereabouts himself, up until now.

"He didn't die. We used to travel around Mexico, playing our songs for many, many people. A few days before we were set to return to Santa Cecilia, someone offered us a chance to perform in _Ciudad de México. _But that would have meant staying away for three months longer than we were meant to. And I told them no. Ernesto could stay if he wanted to, but _I_ was going home to be with my wife. And you, Coco."

Coco's cheeky grin combated the tears that were threatening to well up in Hector's eyes. He hadn't thought about that conversation in a long time. It had been extremely upsetting, to even think of being away from his family for four whole months. Coco was only three...she could have forgotten him entirely.

"Ernesto was furious with me. He told me I was destroying the dream that he'd worked for his whole life. And he said, "I can't do this without your songs, Hector!" And I took out my songbook, I ripped out all the songs we'd performed together and I said, "Then take them! But my mind is made up. I'm going home, Ernesto." And that was it. I never saw him, never heard a word from him again."

Upon returning home, Hector had quickly become wrapped up in establishing roots in Santa Cecilia, helping Imelda set up her shoemaking business, and the birth of their second child, not to mention all the drama that came when his father-in-law kicked the twins out and he woke up one morning to find hungry teenage boys on his doorstep. And somehow, five years had gone by. Ernesto had never visited or even written a letter. And yet, through his songs, Hector was still carrying him.

"Come to think of it," said Hector. "Ernesto wasn't a very good friend."

"I think I like Tio Oscar better," said Adi. "He lets me play his trumpet."

Hector smiled. Then he used his free arm to scoop Adilita into his lap and hold Coco as close as possible. He kissed his childrens' dark hair and listened to their soft giggles and felt their little arms holding onto him.

This was what Ernesto had wanted to steal from Hector.

This is what Ernesto had stolen from himself.

How had Hector been so dense as to let Ernesto and his attention-seeking ways rob him of a single day with his family?

"It's not fair that Tio Ernesto gets to play your songs on the radio and you don't," said Coco. "Please promise me you won't name the baby after him?"

"Of course we will not." Hector smiled. "In fact, he already has a name. His name is Hector Cecilio Oscar Solis Rivera. But for now, we can call him Tito."

Later that afternoon, after the two younger children were asleep in the nursery and Coco had run into town to do errands with Oscar and Filipe, Hector crawled into bed and wrapped his arms around Imelda. He buried his face in her neck and sighed. She was real. The babies were real. He wasn't dreaming.

"Did you put Adi down for her nap?"

Hector smiled as he pulled back, just a little.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Just a minute," Imelda whispered as she curled up into a ball, allowing Hector to wrap himself around her in a protective embrace.

And he began to sing.

"_Mi amor y mi señora  
__Buenas tardes, buenas noches  
__Buenas tardes, buenas noches  
__Mi amor y mi señora_

_To be here with you tonight  
__Brings me joy, que alegria  
__For this music is my language  
__And it's all for mi familia"_

"You changed it," Imelda whispered as Hector planted a gentle kiss on her cheek.

"No_, mi amor_. This is what I should have been singing all along ."


	4. Passing Judgement

People had questioned Imelda's choices all her life.

Her choice to wear a bright red dress to her _quiences_ (which she made herself, because her mother was dead). Her choice to let her little brothers dance the first dance with her (because she and her father weren't speaking). Her choice to work as a waitress to support her family (instead of just getting married and leaving the twins to fend for themselves). Her choice to get into political arguments with the customers, male and female alike, whenever the classist and sexist arguments came about.

"Someone tell the skinny _mesera_ that if she shuts her _boca_, no flies will come in."

If her manager was around, he would shake his head and mutter, "Believe me, I've tried."

But this, her decision to allow a man eight months her junior visiting from Santa Cecilia to court her, was perhaps the most questioned of all.

"He's a seventeen-year-old _mariachi_, he's never going to marry her!"

"I always knew that poor, stupid _chica_ would ruin her life."

"Can you blame her for falling for it, though? I can't imagine that any other man had ever wanted her, and then he struts into town seranading her and calling her pet names?"

But she didn't fall for him because of the pet names (which she had rolled her eyes at), or because he'd dedicated his song of the night to "that beautiful seniorita in the purple dress" (which hadn't hurt), or even because he'd asked twelve-year-old Oscar and Filipe's permission to ask her out on a date without a hint of insincerity, and ended the interaction with a reminder that a woman should be allowed to choose who courts her no matter what, but that he was grateful for their approval.

Imelda ended their third date, which took place in the plaza on a warm afternoon, by getting into an argument with Ernesto over the rumored women's rights protests in America and Europe. Something that she knew full well would end a relationship with the wrong man. _Most _men.

"Look, I'm not saying that all women are _completely _stupid," Ernesto has calmly explained. "There's just a limit to how much power they should have. Besides, a woman will always vote the way her husband votes anyway, so in reality, this is just a ploy to get more votes for married men."

Before Imelda was two sentences into her planned tirade of criticisms, Ernesto turned to Hector and smiled.

"_Amigo_, would you tell your girlthat if she shuts her _boca _no flies will come in?"

"No," Hector scoffed. "But I do hope she says that to you."

A few minutes later, Ernesto stormed away from the plaza in a huff.

_"Lo siento, cariña._ Ernesto can be a bit…unrefined."

Imelda sat down beside Hector on the edge of the stage and folded her hands in her lap.

"If that's the way you feel, then why do you stay with him?" she asked.

"Sometimes, I wonder that myself," Hector chuckled. "But it's been just him and me for a long time. A long time ago, our fathers had a leather-making business together. So Ernesto and I sort of grew up together, like _primos._ Then five years ago, Papa and Tio Fernando were killed in a fire that destroyed their business. My Mama died of grief soon after, and his Mama left to join the convent. And Ernesto just sort of…took me in. He was able to get a better job than I was at the time, so he kept a roof over our heads. I kept him from making any particularly stupid decisions. I taught him how to play guitar, we started writing songs together." Imelda shot him a doubtful look. "Well, _I _write the songs, he helps me work out the tune by playing it as I write. This one time he tried to write a love ballad, and it devolved into something about wrestling in less than a minute. But other than my family, he's the one person who's always believed in me. He genuinely believes, with every last nuance of his soul, that I am a brilliant musician and songwriter. That my music has the ability to touch the hearts of the world."

And Imelda found herself saying, "There might be other people who could see how brilliant you are, too."

And she found herself sliding her hand into his hand.

"People who are a bit less…_unrefined_."

And she found herself leaning in towards him, using her other hand to guide his lips to hers, and holding them there for much longer than anyone ever should in a public place.

There were plenty of people around to judge her for that, too. But she didn't care.

Because for the first time in her life, she had found someone who never would.


End file.
